Thank you very much for inviting me to speak on behalf of the Polaris Music Prize.
I realize in the preparatory material that I read, it said not to describe what you do too much but to get to the matters at hand, but if you'll just permit me I'll mention the following.
We are a not-for-profit organization that annually honours, celebrates, and rewards creativity and diversity in Canadian recorded music by recognizing, then marketing, the albums judged to have the highest artistic integrity, without regard to musical genre, professional affiliation, or sales history, as judged by a panel of over 200 select music critics from across the country. Previous winners have been Arcade Fire, Feist, Caribou, Karkwa, Patrick Watson, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and Owen Pallett. Nominees have included Metric, Neil Young, Ron Sexsmith, Tegan and Sara, K'naan, Sarah Harmer, and Kathleen Edwards. I wanted to throw a few more artists names into the mix, just as the other two witnesses have been doing here.
Our jury includes media from coast to coast in Canada and excludes anyone who makes a living from musicians, or as a musician. It was inspired by both the Giller Prize for fiction in Canada and the Barclaycard Mercury Prize in the U.K. for album of the year. It is an award strictly for the quality of the main artistic work in a recording artists canon: the album. This is our ninth year.
We are based in Toronto where our annual gala is held each September. Polaris season starts in June with the release of our 40-title long list. The ten-album short list is announced in July. We select 11 critics from our larger panel to pick the winner the night of our September gala. This year it's September 22, and you're all invited.
We've been called “prestigious” by The New York Times and the BBC. The Chicago Tribune calls us "Canada's top music honour". The Globe and Mail has said that Polaris is "something that matters on the international stage". But any credit that Polaris takes from this must really be given to the artists themselves. They are making world-class artistic statements.
A lot has been said and during this review l'm sure you will hear from others a lot about how well our artists perform commercially around the world. What Polaris has done, if anything, is to celebrate the quality of our musical works in a way that the world notices. Canadians are known as innovators and explorers in music in almost every genre, from Polaris nominated Drake and his producer, Noah “40” Shebib, in hip hop, to Cirkut in pop, to inaugural Polaris winner Owen Pallett, who along with another Polaris winner, Will Butler of Arcade Fire, was nominated for an Oscar for best original score recently. We're known for our natural beauty and resources, our comedians, our authors, our politeness and now, more than ever, around the world for our great musicians.
We believe that part of that credit can be given to a history of policy that supports music culture and musicians both directly and indirectly, from FACTOR, to the Canada Council to the Radio Starmaker Fund, and various talent support initiatives required of broadcasters through the CRTC, not to mention Canadian content requirements, our artists can survive next to the cultural behemoth that lies to our south, and often with work that inspires, challenges, and stands the test of time.
It's no secret, and it's been mentioned here before, that sales for albums have been declining. Yet album recordings are still the cornerstone of most artists' commercial and public presence. Albums are the nucleus for all the other activities that allow our musicians to make a living: touring, merchandise, grants, publishing, and master royalties licences. This is why Polaris chooses to celebrate the album above all else. It's the pinnacle of a recording artist's creativity and the thing they generally spend the most of themselves on.
Making the long or short list, or winning Polaris, has many positive effects, the most obvious one being a dramatic uptick in sales and digital streams, often months after the record has exhausted its initial-release promotional activity. It also results in increased international media coverage, better paying gigs, and more promotional opportunities. But it's not just for these benefits that we believe music celebrations like ours are an important part of the music ecosystem. Celebrations and awards give artists something to strive for, in our case for their actual work. To our surprise and delight over the years, we've heard from a few talent managers or artists that they have driven themselves to make better recordings in hope of a Polaris nomination. In an age of dramatically declining sales, we're giving artists something to strive for with these recordings. We're encouraging innovation and excellence.
We believe that existing government policy and programs as they pertain to the Canadian music industry are effective in allowing our artists to excel at being themselves and telling Canadian stories that they then share successfully around the world. There have been many positive articles in U.K. and U.S. media outlets written about Polaris. l'd like to summarize two thoughts that appear to be common to a lot of them: (1) Canada is making amazing music; (2) Their government support for music is incredible. To us the correlation is real: accessible funding that takes chances on more challenging artists results in music that leads the world. This results in the very real perception that Canada is a world leader in music.
If there's anything we might suggest, it's that we, along with other music celebrations and awards, are considered under slightly different criteria when it comes to funding, as we tend to get either wedged into other development categories like conferences and festivals, or at times don't qualify for other funds because we are not rights holders. Refinement of the criteria to consider music awards and celebration under different and more pertinent criteria could make things more efficient for our category.
Also, a word about music education. Any charity efforts we undertake are aligned with MusiCounts, which provides instruments to schools that can no longer afford to provide them for their students. We believe the excellence we have just outlined starts with music education from the very early years. The benefits to child development have been well documented, but we believe the development to Canadian music cannot be overlooked. We fully support any effort for a national music strategy that includes music education as an important part of that strategy.
Once again thank you very much for inviting Polaris to this discussion, and as everyone else here, l'm happy to answer any questions.